


No Experience Required

by telekinesiskid



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Big Donut, Distant Admiration, F/M, First Job, Lars' crippling self-esteem issues, Sadie is infatuated with him, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:56:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4474970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telekinesiskid/pseuds/telekinesiskid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's trying her best.</p><p>But he's just so difficult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so originally this was going to be chapter 1 of a rather gritty story centering around the events of the Island Adventure episode... but I'm not entirely sure if I'll write it yet. We'll see how we go!
> 
> Huge kudos to Kiiouex for being beta! (and also coming up with a good title + summary)

The very first thing she notices about him is how cute he is. The little stretchers in his ears, the puff of curly hair on the top of his head, the nervous way he averts his gaze and tightens his lips…

She tells herself to snap out of it. She needs to be a little bit more professional.

“Hey there,” she greets once he’s finished his slow approach to the counter. She smiles her warm welcome and puts her hand out for him. “You must be Lars.”

He nods. He looks down at her hand and then removes one of his own from his pocket to shake. She can’t help but take note of how _soft_ his skin is, but he pulls his hand away from hers too soon and shoves it back into his jacket.

She gives him time to make his introduction, but he doesn’t take it. He doesn’t say a word. He meets her eye for a second and then he’s looking back at the floor, where he’d kept his gaze occupied when he first pushed his way into the store. He keeps his hands buried deep in his pockets and hunches up his shoulders and rocks back on his heels. He looks like a kid pushed into a job he doesn’t want and thinks he doesn’t need.

She understands. The phrase, _we’ve all been there,_ runs through her mind.

“My name’s Sadie,” she offers in an attempt to make him less uncomfortable. “Don’t worry about trying to remember it right away. If you forget, it’ll always be right here on my name tag, heh.” She points to it above her breast and she watches his eyes flicker to her own and then away again. He gives a pointless little nod, just to acknowledge that he heard her.

She wonders if maybe making a little more small-talk before jumping straight into training will ease his discomfort.

“So, Lars, how old are you?” she asks.

“Fourteen,” he shoots at her in a low voice, and she thinks she hears a curiously defensive edge to it. But before she can even begin to speculate why, much to her surprise, he redirects the question back to her. “H-how old are you?”

“I’m sixteen,” she answers, smiling kindly at him.

He looks away. He makes a noise in the back of his throat like he’s having a hard time pretending he cares.

“First job, huh?” she asks and he shrugs. She chuckles, “Well, don’t worry. As far as jobs go, this one is pretty laidback. You know, just cleaning, restocking, being nice to customers – that kind of thing. I’ll be the one to show you the ropes, since I’ll be here a lot of the time.”

He’s still too nervous to say anything. He just stands there and stares intensely at the counter between them, nodding occasionally, like he’s just awaiting instruction.

She figures she may as well just press on, and hopefully he’ll warm up to her soon.

“How about a tour?” she asks brightly. He just shrugs again.

She shows him around. She shows him the skip out back, the supply room, the refrigerators, the display cabinets, the register – everything. She finishes her tour in the employee room, and introduces it as such. Even after all that he’s still so awkward and jumpy, so she pours him out a cup of water from the old cooler. His hand shakes as he takes it from her.

“So,” she starts out laughing, circling the table she’d just sat him at, “It’s _kind_ of cheesy, but we have this educational video tape.” She waves it in her hand. “It’s just about health and safety and emergency procedures and all that stuff… _Really_ boring, I know, but it’s super important. I guess, back in the 90s, you had to keep people entertained somehow…”

She keeps doing this. She keeps trying to downplay the job she loves, just trying to look cool for Lars. But he barely notices her efforts and it still does nothing to soothe him. He still sits perched on the chair like he’s being forced to sit upon a bed of tacks. He still jumps at every unfamiliar sound and swings his head around like he thinks it’s someone coming to hurt him.

After a while, it really starts to bother her.

“Hey,” she says gently, tone soft. “Are you OK? I get that first jobs can be really new and scary, but you don’t have to be so nervous.” She smiles at him, trying to be encouraging. “Really. I promise I’m not mean. You don’t have to be scared.”

The last thing she expects him to do is look up to sneer at her. “I’m not _scared,_ ” he hisses, finding his voice. “And I’m especiallynot scared of someone like _you.”_

She blinks. She stares at him but he doesn’t stare back; within moments he lowers his gaze back to his lap.

“…OK,” she says quietly after a long, stunned pause. She forces herself to move, even with the heavy sensation his words had left in her limbs. She just pushes the tape into the VCR, turns on the TV, and sits back in the other chair. The video flickers and rolls with static before it comes to life on screen, and they watch the video in complete silence.

For the first time she watches the video, from start to finish, and she doesn’t tap her foot along to the music.

When it’s over, some thirty-five minutes later, she stands and turns the TV off. She turns to face him. She has absolutely no idea what to say but she still tries.

“Congrats on not falling asleep.” She forces a small laugh. “Am I right?”

He shrugs.

She didn’t know what she was expecting. But at least she thinks she prefers his silence to any other mean-spirited thoughts he might’ve wanted to voice.

She’s not so understanding anymore. She doesn’t know what his deal is, what his problem is. She doesn’t know if he takes issue with her specifically, or the job, or the establishment, or the video, or any other factors entirely out of her scope, but…

She decides to stop taking pity on him. To stop feeling so sorry for him.

She stops trying to be a friend to him and just focuses on training him.

*

The first few days don’t go as smoothly as she had thought they would. She’s trained only a couple of employees before but she’s never had to deal with anyone so surly and stanchly mute as Lars. She doesn’t blame him for the spills, or messing up the orders, or leaving doors that should be closed wide open; he’s just a kid and has barely been a week on the job after all. But it frustrates her the way he refuses to talk to her, or ask for her help. Like he’s terrified that he’ll get into massive amounts of trouble the second he has to admit fault, even though she must’ve pointedly assured him that he _won’t_ over ten times now.

She’d thought about it a few times, and she thinks about it some more. She thinks about telling her manager that Lars isn’t working out. That he doesn’t work fast enough when the customers begin to queue, that he makes too many mistakes, that his presence hasn’t increased productivity like it was supposed to, but just slowed everyone down, and _especially_ her.

But then she thinks maybe she should cut him some slack. It’s only been his first week after all. He’s still getting the hang of it. He’s still technically in training.

*

She doesn’t usually like to colour her language with profanity, but she has to admit that it’s been a shit day. Lars came in a full twenty minutes later than she needed him to be there. Then he broke the television set in his break somehow, although he won’t tell her how (she expects it has something to do with the fact that his shoelaces are _always untied_ when they should not have been). And then he dropped several dozen donuts on the floor as he rushed them over, and she’s barely heard a proper apology from him yet. He didn’t even do a great job cleaning because she can still see chocolate icing smeared on the floor she runs around on so often.

As frustrating as it all is, it doesn’t bother her. They’re _accidents_ – there’s no malicious intent behind his actions. He’s just clumsy. He’s just nervous. He’s even a little rude.

The one thing she cannot abide, however, is rudeness to the customers.

She can’t abide Lars being rude to little Steven.

Steven races in just as the day starts to wind down and it’s less than an hour away from closing time. She looks up from where she’s mopping up a fresh mess Lars made and greets him, “Hey Steven,” as usual. And he’s such a polite little boy – he asks how her day is going and she lies and tells him that it’s been good. She doesn’t express just how difficult it is when Lars is standing right there.

She watches on as Steven approaches the counter Lars is manning. He notices the new face before he even thinks to pick out which donut he wants, and he stares doe-eyed up at Lars. He stands on his tiptoes to see the new employee better over the counter surface and asks, “What’s your name?”

“Can’t you read?” Lars quips back at him. He points to himself, “it’s on the name tag, idiot.”

Sadie snaps her head over to her trainee. “Hey,” she warns, but Lars doesn’t hear her over the sound of Steven’s excited laughter.

“Oh yeah!” he exclaims. “Larse! That’s a funny name!”

“It’s _Lar-rzz,_ ” he enunciates grouchily.

Steven tips his head at him, curious. “Then why isn’t it a Z instead of an S?”

Sadie’s eyebrows shoot up as she hears Lars actually grit his teeth and _growl._

“None of your _business_ , you stupid _kid_ ,” he snaps, leaning far over the counter to tower above Steven. Sadie watches on, stunned, as Lars sneers down at Steven, and his eyes go wide. “Are you gonna buy a donut or not?”

“Uh…”

“If you don’t order something within the next five seconds then we’ll throw you out, and you’ll have to go home hungry.”

“Wha-“

“And you’ll be _banned_ from ever coming back to the Big Donut again, for insulting an employee’s name.”

_“Banned?”_

Lars’ mouth curls into a smirk. “That’s right. _Banned._ For life.”

Tears well in Steven’s eyes and Sadie decides enough is enough.

 _“Lars,”_ she chastises, and he flinches. She doesn’t care that she drops the mop as she crosses the room to Steven, kneeling beside him. She opens out her arms for a hug and Steven throws himself into it, whimpering that he’s sorry and please, Sadie, don’t _ban_ him from the Big Donut, because he loves donuts, and he doesn’t know what he’d do if he can’t ever have a donut from here ever again.

She shoots Lars an icy, fed-up look from over her shoulder, and to see him just stand there dumbly – she can’t help it and she can’t stop herself before she can even begin to process the words.

She yells at him, “Maybe _you’re_ the one who should be banned, Lars. How _dare_ you talk to Steven that way – he’s more a valued customer than you are a valued employee. You can’t do _anything_ right. Just– just _go away._ ”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. He keeps his face perfectly still as he turns and disappears into the backrooms.

It doesn’t take much to calm Steven down and get him to perk up again. She pats him on the back and assures him that he’s _not_ going to be banned, which stops the tears, and she tells him that he can have any donut he wants, completely free of charge, which makes him grin. He picks out a particularly extravagant strawberry and vanilla donut, with sprinkles, and beams up at her. She apologises once again for Lars’ behaviour, and then he runs out the door, back to his dad.

She sighs. She takes a breather for a second. She still has mopping to finish and cleaning and restocking and all these little tasks, but she has to talk to Lars first. She has to tell him that what he just did was _not_ OK.

She checks for him in the employee room, but he’s not there. She checks in various cupboards and closets and bathrooms for him, but she can’t find him. She doesn’t think he’s left yet because his jacket is still hanging off a chair. She calls out for him, “Lars?”

She stills as she hears a sob.

Tentatively, she follows it. She follows it back into a supply room she was sure she had looked over, but she obviously hadn’t been that thorough. She flips a switch and the light flickers on. She thinks she can see him, behind a few packed shelves, amongst a few opened boxes, and she walks around.

The sight of him makes her heart plummet through the floor.

She knows he’s crying, as much as he tries to hide it. He keeps his face on his sleeve, or his sleeve on his face, as he turns his body away from her, into the corner, because he has nowhere else to go. He sniffs. He breaths hard and heavy.

Maybe she was too hard on him.

“Lars,” she murmurs, stepping over boxes to get to him. She kneels down and lays a comforting hand on him, but he must not have read it as comforting to flinch like that. “Lars, I’m sorry I yelled at you back there… That… I guess, I just feel pretty defensive when it comes to Steven. He’s like a little brother to me.”

She waits for Lars to say or do anything, but he doesn’t. He just sniffs.

She sits down properly. She doesn’t know how long she’ll be there with him.

“I shouldn’t’ve said those things,” she admits in a small, remorseful voice. “And I didn’t mean them. You’re… You’re still learning. And it’s OK to make mistakes... You know, when I first worked here, I made a lot of mistakes too. In my first week I dropped a _lot_ of donuts, and I thought, well, that was it – I’m gonna be fired now. But everyone was really patient with me. People were nice. And over time I gained a lot of confidence, and I didn’t mess up so much… I think it’ll be the same with you. You just gotta learn to be nice to customers. Even if they _do_ get a bit annoying sometimes.”

She feels a thrill go through her as Lars rotates his body a little. He peers at her with red eyes and blotchy cheeks. She smiles at him and she smiles even wider when he gives a brief little nod.

She knows a little about how he operates now. She knows it’s better to distract him and talk about something fun and not work-related to get him to talk to her.

“Hey,” she says, grinning at him. She gives a nod towards another room. “Wanna hear _why_ we no longer make our own donuts?”

She spends the next twenty minutes telling him all about “the accident”.

It was the first time she’d ever heard Lars laugh.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhaahhha here's another chapter of this story, just randomly. I might see it through after all??? We'll see anyway. For now it's still fairly tame.

She notices that he starts to settle in a bit better, after a few weeks. There are fewer spills for her to clean up, less repeated reminders to make, and a lot of the usual customers have stopped complaining about the huge hold-ups during the lunch rush. Productivity seems to be finally picking up again.

She thinks she’s beginning to understand Lars a little more, not through his words necessarily – he never just says what’s on his mind – but through his actions. And how he acts around certain people.

His behaviour changes drastically whenever a certain kind of person walks in. Like he tailors his attitude to fit whoever he’s serving. It’s a little bit ridiculous just how many people he wants to please. He doesn’t go out of his way to make small talk, but when the order is slow to come and he’s faced with inquiries about his day and remarks about the weather, he changes. She’s seen it happen. She’s watched on, amazed, while he politely laughs at the kind of jokes elderly folk told – the kind he’d already loudly declared to her as lame and dated. She’s heard him address businesspersons in slick suits as “Sir” or “Ma’am” even while he quietly shows a complete and total lack of respect for authority.

His behaviour changes the most whenever his popular schoolmates come around.

It’s always the same three kids, around his age. She supposed they must’ve been from his year because she didn’t recognise any of their faces. She’d served them only a couple of times before but it was fairly obvious to her the first time she’d ever laid eyes on them that they were the “cool kids”. They were always a swarm of colourful clothes and trendy accessories and spaced-out beats and an air of fame and exclusivity. She only saw them as one of the Pizza daughters, the Mayor’s son, and the rave host, but Lars clearly saw them as something much, much more. Something much bigger than himself. Something he wanted to be a part of.

He snaps to attention before they even come in. He just hears their laughter from literal doors down and it’s like a conditioned response; he stuffs his comic book into a cubbyhole by his feet, he takes off his headphones, and he checks himself in the reflection of the beverage cooler. His back is ramrod straight and his eyes are wide with anticipation as he stares at the door, awaiting them. His breathing comes quick and stilted.

“H-Hey guys!” he greets them, throwing his hand up for a too-eager wave. “Hey Buck, Jenny, Sour Cream!”

They all lay eyes on him and they stop laughing.

“H-How are you guys feelin’ like today?”

He winces, as though his own words don’t agree with him.

The cool kids look between each other. The girl named Jenny speaks for them. “Uhh… what?”

Sadie thinks maybe Lars needs a napkin. He keeps compulsively rubbing his palms over his jeans. He’s rocking on his heels. His answering laugh is clipped and forced and yet somehow still over-the-top and beyond his control. There’s no consistency to his actions; he acts like he doesn’t know how to act around them, switching between too-formal and too-casual in the blink of an eye. She’s never seen him look so out-of-character. So goofy with nerves.

“Aha ha ha ha ha, uh, sorry, I uh, I meant to say- I was gonna say, ‘how are you guys doing’ but I also- I was also gonna say ‘what do you guys feel like today’ and they just sorta mixed up- d-does that ever happen to you guys??”

 _Oh Lars,_ she wants to sigh.

They appraise him. They appraise him like a dirty old relic from a time period that’s best left forgotten. She swears she can feel the panicked, humiliated heat radiate off his face the longer they continue to stand there and stare. The amount of power these so-called ‘cool kids’ have over him is just…

She thinks maybe it’s time she steps in to mediate the conversation before it goes south too quickly and they don’t make a sale, but she doesn’t need to. “Whatever,” Jenny dismisses with a tired sigh, pushing up her sunglasses, approaching the counter. She hums as her eyes fly over the trays of donuts in the display cabinets. “Hmm… Just get me a chocolate éclair.”

“C-Comin’ right up!” He beams too-bright at Jenny before his eyes shift to Sadie. When they do, there’s no light left in them at all. There’s just frowns and impatience. “ _Sadie,_ ” he hisses, “get Jenny a chocolate éclair.”

She feels a pulse of irritation. He can’t speak to her like that, and in front of customers too. She wants to ask him what his last slave died of, but she doesn’t. She just fetches the chocolate éclair and bags it and coldly hands it over to him.

He doesn’t even say thank you before he pushes it over to the customer, smile returned, larger than life, larger than she’s ever seen on him before, larger than she ever thought he was capable of. “There you are, Jenny!”

Jenny narrows her eyes at him. “How _do_ you know my name?”

Sadie watches his smile falter then perk up then falter again. “Hah… uh… I-It’s me; Lars...? We’re uh,” he wets his lips, “w-we’ve been going to school together since we were like, seven?”

“Have we,” she drawls back, tone a little sceptical. A little smirk curls at her lips as she looks him up and down, and the tall pale boy behind her chuckles. A flicker of recognition crosses her face. “Oh, no no, wait a minute… didn’t you used to have darker hair?”

He perks up again. “Y-Yeah! I dyed it last year.”

“And your ears,” she continues, “they used to… _not_ have stretchers?”

“Yeah.” A hand reaches up to touch one of his tunnels. They’re white today. “I’ve had them for a couple of years now.”

Jenny makes a small nonchalant noise as she stares at Lars’ ears, lips a little pursed. She bears the kind of expression that looks blank to Sadie but probably means a million things to Lars. None of them good.

“So, how much do I owe you?” Jenny asks, digging out her wallet from her jacket.

 _“Oh,_ uh, don’t worry about it,” Lars says, waving her money away, always smiling, always so obvious how he’s tripping over in his desperation to be acknowledged. “It’s on the house!”

Lars must be operating off an entirely different manual. Last time Sadie checked, customers always had to pay for their donuts. Regardless of how cute they were. Or how much the insecure employee needed to be liked by them.

“For real?” Jenny responds, and that almost gets a smile out of her. Almost. She shrugs and tucks her wallet away, picking up her éclair. “Alright. Well then, see ya around,” she peers at his nametag, “ _Larse._ ”

“Uh, heh, it’s Lars.”

“ _Ohhh,_ riiight. Thanks for the free donut,” she laughs, turning smoothly and taking her leave.

They don’t even wait until they’ve left the store before they start laughing at him. And talking about him.

Sadie thinks she catches the word ‘lame’ just as the door shuts, and she thinks Lars does too. That word he’s always using to describe absolutely everything but himself.

“Um.” He breathes out a slow sigh. His eyes don’t move from the door. “I’m gonna… take my break now,” he mumbles, walking away.

“Lars,” she calls out to him before he rounds the corner, “You can’t give donuts away for free! Who’s going to pay for that?”

He stops, puts one hand on the wall. His head is more down than usual. “I don’t know,” he sighs, “just… take it from the donation box or something.”

She hears the break room door shut.

She slips the three fifty from her own wallet into the till instead.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> slooooowly builds a story....
> 
> ok so we're kinda... in the process of creating a new tone here. A creepier one.

She thinks she might be in love with him.

She’s not entirely sure. She’s never been in love before. She’s only ever read about it in books – works of fantastical fiction that is – and sometimes she’s watched it happen on television shows that seem a hell of a lot more like fairy tales than representations of reality. But she thinks she remembers all of the signs and symptoms from her time in elementary school. The sweaty palms, the hard pound of heartbeat in her ears, the tendency to stumble upon even the most basic of words, the wandering eyes… the daydreams.

She thinks perhaps the daydreams are the worst– the internal playouts of alternate branches of reality.

He catches her watching him a lot, especially on the slow days. He turns red and throws down whatever box he’s stocking and he screws up his face, defensive and guarded. He’s like the viper on the green shirt he wears on his days off. He’s comfortable enough around her now that he has no problem wasting time and accusing her of spying on him, just waiting for him to trip up and make a mistake, and- look his shoes _are_ tied today, and- is there something on his face because she keeps staring and she won’t stop.

She lies. She tells him there’s a little powdered sugar on his cheek and he falls silent, embarrassed. She watches him compulsively swipe at his cheek, and every other part of his face too, for the rest of the afternoon.

She finds it a little sad that he won’t ever consider the possibility that she stares at him all day because he’s beautiful. She can literally see his thoughts cross his face when he catches her in the act. It’s always: _what have I done wrong now? What’s wrong with me? What can I change about myself in a heartbeat to look and act and be more acceptable?_

Not a thing, she thinks to herself. Not a thing.

 

She’s noticed that he cycles through a lot of clothes. One day it’s snakes, the next it’s scorpions. She thinks that maybe he spends his not-so-hard-earned money faster than he can spend it. He doesn’t always show up with a whole lot of lunch, but that just leaves her more and more opportunities to bring him some from home, or take him out on their breaks. Sandwiches, chips, pizza, stale donuts from the store- whatever he likes.

Sometimes she thinks maybe there’s a downside to her love for him. It’s nowhere near a tough-love level of affection. It’s not a love that encourages better of him. It’s complacent with what little it has, it’s accepting of all his flaws and shortcomings, it’s eager to please him just as much as he’s eager to please those so-called cool kids.

She thinks she loves him so much she’d let him get away with murder.

And that scares her.

But then he tosses her a bag of oyster crackers he says he doesn’t want and all her worries just melt away- a heavy pink haze just settles over her, and she remembers instantly that he’s flawless and can do no wrong.

He calls her ‘Player 2’, just once, and it suddenly makes standing for hours in the rain for him completely worth it.

 

He takes advantage of her. He lies to her. Sometimes she doubts that he even sees her as a _friend,_ much less someone he could one day share a life with. But she perseveres. Love is pummelling her in the stomach, spitting in her face, grinding its heel into her throat until she can’t breathe- but she’s still smiling.

She worries about him. She’s so worried after his back injury. She absolutely _insisted_ that he went to a hospital – just to make sure that nothing was broken and he hadn’t slipped a disk – but she didn’t push; she understands how expensive those bills can be. She trusts him when he says he’ll be okay soon. She tells him to take a few days off and to get a lot of rest and she’ll check in on him later. He nods, and sniffs, and whimpers, and wobbles to the door, arching beautifully, in pain, and he…

He plays her like a fucking flute.

She thought she’d get to look after him. She thought she’d get to see the inside of his house, where he _lives-_ she thought she’d get to see his _bedroom._ But she didn’t even get that far.

She catches him on his backyard trampoline, with the cool kids. She catches him with Jenny. One of those ‘hot babes’ he constantly talks about when the sun is out and the weather’s hot and he half-expects a women’s beach volleyball team to drop by out of nowhere, and she can’t stand it- she has to get away from him before she does something drastic.

She makes a fist and she swears she’s about to punch Steven right in his little fat pink face--

She steadies herself, puts the fist down. Steven’s not her target. He’s not to blame.

She gives the little care package to Steven instead. She walks away.

She almost burns down half the Pier and causes irreparable damage to Lars’ mouth and throat, but she gets him back good.

 

She finds him at the end of her shift. He’s slumped across the table, arms tucked under his turned head, cushioning it from the table top that he probably hasn’t cleaned in a couple of days. There’s a half-finished, lukewarm soft drink beside him and the TV’s still on. She turns it off. She screws the cap on his drink so that he won’t move his arms and spill it all over himself.

She puts out her hand, meaning to touch his shoulder and shake him awake and tell him that it’s time for closing, but she pauses before she can do it. She stops, because suddenly she’s overcome with…

The only reason she thinks she’s not waking him is because he looks so peaceful. So friendly. So cute.

She doesn’t really know what she’s doing, but she can take a guess as her fingers reach into her jean pocket and pull out her phone.

She’ll take just one picture of him. For reference.

Two pictures.

Okay, last one.

Six.

Ten…

Both of them jump when her phone beeps. He sits up, alert, head snapping left to right like he can’t quite remember where he is, and then he whines.

“Oh, hah, it’s a txt from my mom,” she says, shaky, skimming the message. “Meatloaf for dinner tonight. That’s nice- I like meatloaf. What about you, Lars?”

He groans. He leans back in his chair and yawns and cricks out all the little joints in his arms when he stretches. He stretches so far that his shirt rides up and she catches a glimpse of a barely-visible feather-light treasure trail.

God, she wishes she could’ve gotten a picture of that too.

“…Anyway,” she puts the phone away. “It’s closing time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he complains and stands, snatching up his things, shoving one arm after the other into his jacket. He slumps to the exit and as she calls out “see you tomorrow” he remembers to throw up a hand in a parting gesture. She just locks up as usual and then she’s out in the cold of the Pier too, heading home for a hot meal and her mother’s favourite sitcom.

When she next looks at her phone, she finds she has forty-seven new photos in her gallery.

All of them Lars.


End file.
